Feathers and the Seven Legs of a Dead Spider
by Jim in a Crown
Summary: Natasha/Clint- a collection of half fluffy, half reasonably serious drabbles; various scenes. "-And a pair of highly skilled assassins."
1. Chapter 1

**Author's note:**

This is a selection of pieces about Natasha and Clint, aka S.H.I.E.L.D's 'highly skilled assassins' The Black Widow and Hawkeye. This is based _only_ off the Avengers film, and I freely admit I haven't read the comics. So, this is just my take on things. Hope you enjoy it.

* * *

They had met in less than auspicious circumstances. The Black Widow had been on a hit mission. So had Hawkeye.

His mission, was, of course, to kill her, in her homeland, in a perfectly set up set of suspicious circumstances that might have implicated a government or two. But not the ones that mattered to S.H.I.E.L.D, of course.

It was a film-scene of a setting, a Russian oligarch's mansion, all fake old masters and tastelessly ornate carpets and throws and furs. A wide hallway, designed like a Georgian old English house, complete with the walkways around the upper floor that looked down (over fake marble railings) into the tiled and chandeliered entrance hall. It was the kind of architecture that was a gift for an archer, not that Hawkeye needed any help.

He broke in noiselessly through the kitchens, and found a perch up on the balcony, having located the Black Widow and her target as downstairs, in the dining hall. He didn't interfere. Her target meant nothing to him, in fact, he needed to die to complete the story. He could hear the murmur of voices, and wondered what was taking her so long. The dining room door was left fractionally ajar and a crack of light spilled into the hall.

Hawkeye adjusted his position just slightly, crouching in the gallery, looking through the banisters, an arrow in place but the bow string slack. This was too easy. No servants, no complications, just a lone target who- though good- shouldn't know he was here. Clint expected to be back on a plane to America by midnight. It was nine pm. He flicked through the brief in his head.

The Black Widow- Natasha Romanoff. Her case-file described her as intelligent, highly skilled, dangerous but not malicious. She wasn't one of the many psychopathic assassins that killed for fun and without feeling. Her style was not overly extravagant- she did the job and left. However she was renowned for playing up the femme fatale- only to outwit at the next step and do something tragically un-ladylike like plunge a rusty knife into a gut. She was proficient in hand to hand combat, and various firearms, and knives. She hardly ever had to break in, and Hawkeye grudgingly supposed being invited in was easier than breaking in, and oddly enough, left far less evidence sometimes. Physically she was small, red haired, and… beautiful- he acknowledged of the blurry photograph he was given in the way that one acknowledges a plate of food can be, before it is demolished, eaten, gone. Like she herself must know- thought they worked for different sides- never ever consider your hit to be a human capable of the same intensity of emotion as yourself, or anything so human as beauty.

Then the door opened and he saw her back first, green satin and the back of a red haired head- then as the bow string was taught and the arrow about to fly- she spun around, quite a feat- as she was heaving the fat old man forwards.

Hawkeye's arrow hit the man in the throat, where it should have hit the Black Widow in the back of the neck severing her spinal chord. The man's body dropped clumsily, bloodily, and Clint stood up, legs stiff from prolonged immobility, but the adrenaline of 'something going a bit wrong' making such trivialities forgotten.

The Black Widow was pointing a small revolver at him, and he was sure that she wouldn't miss. He had another arrow drawn, and he was sure she assumed the same of him. There was a silence in the hall, except for the gurgle and stutter as the old rich man's blood filled his lungs and he chocked, quite swiftly, to death.

The Black Widow wore a long green dress, an evening gown, low so her snowy white skin was exposed from the chest to the neck. She looked incredibly young and vulnerable, were it not for the steel in her eyes, and the way her hands didn't so much as tremble on the gun. It was an act. An act that it wasn't hard to disbelieve when you looked into her eyes.

"Thank you for killing him. It saved me the trouble. I assume you speak English?"

Her voice was low and husky, older and more mature than Clint would have imaged. She had no trace of a Russian accent, in fact there was an American intonation to her words- though he couldn't place from where- she smiled disarmingly. The hall was all but silent after the echo of her words faded, with a faint ticking of a large clock somewhere off to the right.

"How did you know I was here?"

"I knew you were coming. Your lot have been after me for months. I intend to come in quietly."

She intended- no- "But how did you know _I _was here?" She shouldn't have, by all means. He'd underestimated her.

She blinked, and ignored the question. "Do you want a glass of wine? He has an excellent selection. Several very good vintages."

"It's hard to drink when you're holding a bow."

Natasha Romanoff made a face, and shrugged, then delicately kicked the dead man with the tow of her heeled shoes. He didn't move, though Hawkeye could see the point poke (painfully) into his soft fatty side.

"Come down so I can talk to you?"

Then she stepped over the body, and –lowered her gun-.

Clint didn't move. He didn't know whether to shoot her now, or lower his weapon too. He was quite sure by the time the arrow hit her, a bullet would still be coming his way.

She looked up at him, still in the shade of the dimly lit gallery, "But your bow down, Hawk, I know who you are. Even if you won't take me in, come and have a drink before-" she stopped. Hard eyed, swallowed. The first thing that wasn't an act? Or, was it?

He lowered his bow, slowly, string still taught. She tipped her head towards the stairs, indicating- 'walk down.' Hawkeye stepped out into the light. The gallery was long and wide, and he moved onto the ornate soft carpet, silent booted feet sinking in as though the pile were mud as he moved towards the stairs. Each step was considered and he kept his eyes on her. At the top of the stairs he stopped, looking down their long winding progression to her small figure, paused in the middle of the hallway.

The Black Widow held out the gun on the flat of her hand, still looked up, eyes appraising him, "I'm not going to shoot you. I said, I know where you're from. If I shoot you, I'm going to suffer long at certain American hands, that funnily enough, ignore the human rights bill as thoroughly as _this_ delightful country." Clint couldn't suss the tone of her voice. Resigned, bitter, laughing at him? He kept the string taught, though not that he would admit it to himself, just a little less so, and walked down the stairs towards her, one step at a time. Eyes on her.

She watched him carefully, taking in his dark tight clothes, devoid of any logos for safety, his short cropped hair and his state of the art bow and arrows. Her green dress swept the floor as she stepped towards him across the pale marble gap, and held out her gun free hand to him, pale, delicate fingered. They were close now, and he could see the colour of her eyes, her full lips, the reflection of the chandelier in the small black gun in her hand, devoid of rings, short finger nailed.

An archer needs two hands whereas a gunman only needs one, so he didn't fall for it and take her hand. Instead, Hawkeye leant to kiss her knuckles as though in a period drama. The Black Widow laughed delightedly, "You're too smart. But suspicious. You're right, I lie an awful lot, but I really won't shoot you." Her hair moved as she talked, like her dress, with an imperceptible rustle, red curls reflecting the chandelier light. Her fingers were cool and soft.

Hawkeye decided then, in one of those unprofessional decisions that ought by all means to haunt you, what to do. In a quick movement let go of his bow with one hand, letting the string slack, and reached out and placed his hand over the gun, still outstretched on her palm. She met his eyes, almost frowning, almost sad -but not- and let him take it off her. That too was, surprising.

She dropped her arms and stepped backwards and turned away. She walked back slowly towards the dining room she had come from, neatly avoiding the fat body.

Hawkeye followed her, their footsteps echoing around the hall, "You know I'll still have to take you in."

"Obviously. You will have a drink with me first though? Won't you?"

For the next hour, Clint Barton drank ridiculously expensive wine with the renowned assassin Natasha Romanoff, sitting over upholstered furniture in a ridiculous room. She neatly avoided any topic of conversation about killing each other, about Hawkeye's employers, and only briefly explained what she had been doing in this deserted failure of a house on a Thursday evening in September, a handful of miles from Moscow. She spoke about Russia, literature, American TV, how she went to school there for a little (the American accent) politics (only a little) and general trivialities. Clint kept his bow on his back, and her gun in his pocket.

When they felt they had outstayed their welcome in the dead-man's house, Clint took her back to his hotel room, at a loss with what to do with this new responsibility of his. He hadn't killed her. He had acknowledged she was human, and even seen the fear in her eyes that may of may not have been acted.

Much later, Natasha told him it _hadn't _been acted, though it had been a trick in the sense that she was well versed in disguising emotion, and so tactically chose to show it. Natasha also mentioned that she knew she had won, at least in a small way, when he followed her back through the corridor and told her he'd have to take her in. Take her in. Not kill her. That was what she had been aiming for. She'd heard of Hawkeye and she knew that fighting wasn't the best option. It was one of those desperate moments in your life that to retain what freedoms you have, you have to use other means.

In his hotel room, she turned and kissed him like a drowning woman gasps for air, and so he'd fucked her, or more accurately she fucked him- all the while in his head his code of conduct disintegrating, all the facts he'd learned about killing flaking apart in his mind. Sleeping with your target is certainly not one of the tips they tell you. Her cold eyes held his as he came, swearing, so he returned the gesture, the Black Widow naked in his cheap hotel bed, breaths gasping in her throat and her toned back arching off the sheets. It wasn't serious, it wasn't dark, and the cheap hotel lighting was yellow. They laughed and swore.

But- it wasn't love at first sight. It was manipulation and fear, dually, though when Clint half fell asleep Natasha didn't shoot him, just left a note on his pillow that said, "Sorry I'm not ready to settle down." Signed with a small spider. It made him laugh, tragically, and he left then, at 3 in the morning to hunt her down. Black clad, cold eyed, confused and determined. That went for both of them.

When he found her he didn't shoot her, only her clothes which pinned her helpless to the wall- she wore his things, trousers belted to keep them up and one of his black tops, loose on her- which stuck her to the wall, and like a cat she tried to wriggle out.

By then S.H.I.E.L.D had become in involved in her tracking, so she was taken off his hands and bundled away into a plane by some agents who looked less than amused. It was partly to cover up of his stupidity (or humanity) that he pleaded her case with Fury, and that she eventually got her place own place in S.H.I.E.L.D. Maybe she wasn't 'ready to settle down,' but as she put it to him later- "It was that or die, and I'm painfully pragmatic. Plus they pay well. I was almost going to go with you, the first time- I liked you. But I thought I'd try for freedom one last time." She also added that she got _herself_ the place in S.H.I.E.L.D.

They made up a year later over coffee in the city, just another inconspicuous couple at a table in a corner speaking in low voices over cappuccinos, albeit a good looking and disproportionately muscled couple. He apologised for sleeping with her, and she laughed, and said the same, because she was clearly just desperately hedging her bets on him being one of those kinds of guys that can't help but fall asleep after. It was less awkward than it by all means should have been, but then in their histories they had both done far worse things. They didn't apologise for trying to kill each other. It was just a job.

Clint still held that it was weakness that spared her, but Natasha, uncharacteristically, said it was humanity, "But whichever you think it is, it doesn't really matter, because we're both here now, alive, well, and, well, I'm glad they chose you to kill me, and I'm glad you failed." Her hard eyes weren't lying, and two years after the last time, Clint stopped and kissed her, in the dark on the lawn of the narrow green space that passed as a park in the cramped city. She ran her fingers over the lines of his muscles in his arm as she considered.

"So can we be friends then? And maybe fuck buddies too?"

Clint laughed. Agents didn't have relationships that could disintegrate as easily as theirs- they were both too high profile, too skilled, too likely to die. Natasha knew that, so he kissed her again, and slid a hand under her top. She curled her fingers into his short hair.

At work now Natasha was trusted (it didn't take long, 'I've always worked for the highest bidder, and you outbid everyone,') Hawkeye requested they work on a mission together. He could see Fury's suspicion, and was glad of it, and he knew that Fury asked Natasha behind his back too- as _if_ Clint could manipulate _her._ They were a perfect team, both highly skilled in separate ways, Hawkeye's long distance sniper like skills, and Natasha's more close range combat and general knack for deceit.

A perfect team.

They both knew not to think about how long something like that could last.


	2. Chapter 2

**Author's Note:**

Slightly fluffy. Apologies. More angst next chapter, promise!

* * *

Manhattan smouldered on softly for the next few days while firemen and rescue workers salvaged shaking humans from the rubble, and some less shaking humans from the rubble; immobile things that moved no-more, and made the news presenters grim and grey as they counted out the growing death toll. Precisely, and seriously, as they had done all their lives they read out the numbers. Scrolling banners in red, and lives turned into numerical figures. Less important things like, 'alien invasion' and 'superheroes' didn't have numbers though, so the news channel's all over the world hung onto them, plastered up huge pictures of cheering crowds, dusty Avengers with cocky or stunned smiles, then maybe, just to remind the viewers what the numbers really meant, occasionally pictures of flowers, mourners, and candles.

Natasha turned the television off, then dropped the remote onto the kitchen table where Clint sat, his chin in his hands, thoughtful. He looked at her with calm eyes. Calm hawk-eyes. He was always calm, and steady. Natasha smiled, slightly at him. He grinned, just a little, dropping his hands.

Are you okay? It was unspoken. Natasha nodded.

"It's a bit like coming down off this 'saving the world' high. I can't remember the last time I sat in a kitchen or had a cup of coffee."

"It was good coffee."

"Yeah, you make good coffee." Their voices were both low and soft.

The room wasn't huge, in fact Barton's house was tiny, at least by Tony Stark standards, and plainly furnished. Wood, light colours, windows with bulletproof glass. A small TV in a clean and practical kitchen, cupboards with the normal kind of food. A room with books, a sofa. A bedroom. A spare room. A bathroom that didn't speak to you and ask you what kind of water pressure you wanted. It was civilian. But he was civilian, and so was Natasha- albeit very skilled civilians. With a very specific skill set.

Natasha leant back against a work surface and stretched her arms out in front of her. The light coming through the windows behind her was soft, morning light, but bright and blue in the way that light high up buildings can be.

Clint pushed his empty coffee cup away from in the companionable silence, "Didn't you go home?" He meant after the battle. Everything in conversation was in relation to it these days. Who knew even people who had seem everything could still be so shocked by saving the world?

Natasha shook her head, "Stark's idea of- resting involves lots of alcohol and- Ms. Potts. But I stayed at his and so did Steve, just for two nights. I didn't want to travel back here just yet. Just travel at all." She paused. "I heard this phrase in Russian once. Let your soul catch up with your body." She smiled sardonically, "That sounds so stupid. Considering this is only by a _fraction _the weirdest thing that's happened to us."

Clint shrugged. "Personally I couldn't wait to be home. Coffee. Rest."

"If I'd realised you were leaving I'd have come too."

"It's okay. All I did was sleep and count my bruises."

"We'll have to compare notes. Dam those immortals, and Stark's suit. He has 'major injuries' which include two scratches, and a bruise the size of a pea."

Out of their tight black suits and with the TV off, Clint's small kitchen seemed a world away from S.H.I.E.L.D. Natasha wore a soft cotton T-shirt, wide necked and long sleeved, and narrow jeans. Barefeet. Clint was in a band Tee, and jeans too. An American uniform. For off-duty American superheroes.

Clint raised his eyebrows. "It feels like days ago we saved the world, years."

"It was 48 hours ago."

"Shall we talk about something else?" Clint rubbed his eye.

"What else happens to us anyway? S.H.I.E.L.D is basically our life."

Clint smiled slightly, almost sadly, in agreement.

Natasha stretched her shoulders back then moved away from the cupboards and came behind Clint's chair with silent bare-foot steps. She gently rested her hands on his firm warm shoulders. Clint dipped his head, and she bent down and wound her arms around his neck and held him from behind. He turned his face into her arm and closed his eyes. She smelt of soap.

The kitchen clock ticked for a few long seconds, then Natasha slowly unwound her arms and stepped back, then poked a point on Clint's neck just above the neckline of his top.

"Ow?"

"There's one bruise."

Clint laughed silently and stood up, a hand automatically touching the back of his neck where Natasha had prodded him, not just because everyone has an urge to rub a bruise, but to warm away the ghost of Natasha's fingertips. He turned round the face her and she smiled lazily up into his weather-beaten face.

Natasha's eyes always had a hard edge to them, distrusting maybe, but she was relaxed now for once, and gently took Clint's face in her hands. He leant down to her, smiling, and she smiled back into his mouth before they kissed, chastely.

Natasha spoke low into his lips, "Well I hope you rested up well while I was away, 'coz I can think of many better things to be doing in your bed about now."

Clint laughed, and wound his hands around her waist pulling her closer, and tipped his head to kiss Natasha's smile properly.

"I missed you."

Natasha leant back and cuffed the side of his head lightly with her hand, "You sentimental moron! Don't _miss_ me…"

"Sleep with me instead?"

"I wasn't going to put it so delicately, but yes."

She smiled coyly, and ducked out of his hold, only to grab his hand. Clint held his arm outstretched as Natasha paused and ran a finger over his fingertips, calloused from the bow, even with his specially designed finger guards.

"I'm glad to see you didn't break any of these. I missed your fingers." She laughed, as she couldn't help it and kissed his finger tips, and Clint grabbed her waist and kissed her neck, before she could spin away and drag him towards his bedroom.

Two highly skilled assassins giggled like teenagers. Well, they had to make the most of the few days off. S.H.I.E.L.D wasn't generous with staff leave.


	3. Chapter 3

**Author's note:**

I'm incapable of writing anything that isn't fluffy for Natasha/Clint. I'm so sorry. I just love these two too much okay? Enjoy!

* * *

"You know, he said he'd make you kill me in all the ways I fear, and then wake you up at the end to let you observe your handiwork."

Clint turned around slowly, disbelievingly in the musty passenger seat, while Natasha looked straight ahead and stared at the dirt road, her gloved hands tight around the wheel of the jeep. Unblinking, stony faced.

"Loki."

Natasha nodded, almost imperceptibly, and steered around a pothole. A rabbit flashed out across the road ahead of them, highlighted for a moment in the headlights. Then it was gone. Clint, half watching the road, half watching Natasha, was glad it didn't chose that moment to do a rabbit suicide and freeze in the lights.

He spoke half to himself. "The little shit."

Natasha glanced at Clint then, then back to the road. Her voice was steady, almost casual, but so much so that Clint thought it must have been through her astonishing self control.

"I'm not sure I've ever heard you swear."

"Probably because you never told me that before."

There was a pause in which she blinked, but didn't turn to him, "I shouldn't have said anything."

"No, you should ha-"

"I was just- you know when you turn something over in your head for too long?"

"Yeah."

"It just proves that being too close to anyone in this stupid organisation isn't smart."

Clint let a moment pass and didn't to know what to say, so he lamely, awfully joked, "Well just don't get up close and personal with Fury."

"I'm being serious. We probably shouldn't work together."

"Oh really."

Natasha snapped, "Yes, really."

There was silence for a few long seconds as they bumped along the dirt road again in the dark, the headlights uncovering the dusty potted track ahead of them as though it was eating it up.

"Did he say he would kill me afterwards?"

"No."

There was a pause, then, "Fury is fine with us as a team."

"He's not the Holy Grail of keeping his agents alive and sane."

There was a short 'sad about Phil' silence.

Clint thought Natasha was being unfair, but didn't say anything. He paused and flexed his fingers, looking away from Natasha and out of the side window, only to see the darkness press in closer and reflect his now grim features back at him.

He weighed up his next words before he spoke, but decided to go ahead and say them anyway as they were true.

"Loki didn't need to kill me, probably because he knew I'd kill myself, if I did do that to you."

Clint looked back to Natasha.

Natasha didn't respond, didn't pull over and kiss him, or ask him to marry her. She carried on driving, but slightly, just slightly, turned her head away from him. Clint thought her eyes were shining a little more than normal. Or hoped.

Her voice was slightly gruffer as she broke the next prolonged silence, quietly.

"I'm not sure _I_ would kill myself."

"That's okay."

"How the hell is that okay?" Her hair spun around as she turned her head sharply, "You basically tell me that you l- you tell me you'd kill yourself if you killed me and I can't even reciprocate that."

Clint reached out a tanned hand, half afraid of his own actions as he did so, and gently touched her arm. She flinched a little, and turned back to the road, but Clint pressed on, "We're not the same- we're- me being this sentimental is probably a worse weakness than you not being sentimental enough."

"Stop touching me."

Clint obeyed and drew his arms back, and also drew back into himself. Just a little.

The next hour was silent.

They eventually arrived at the edges of the city, and the dirty lights and shabby houses crowded in on them from either side.

Their mission was far too easy.

-000-000-

They had three hours until the flight home.

Natasha was stretched out on the back seats of the old jeep, knees bent as even her small frame was too long to stretch out in a car. She lay on her back, eyes closes, hands folded over the black clad fabric of her stomach. Clint could see the rise and fall of her breathing but knew she wasn't asleep.

Clint was curled up in the drivers seat, cross legged. He played 'Angry Birds' on his phone, angrily, or at least with frustration. They were both used to waiting, waiting, waiting, but normally before a mission with the promise of something ahead. Now all they had was the awkward atmosphere and the pressing silent darkness outside the car. There wasn't even the danger of someone coming after them. Easy missions. Clint knew Natasha would complain when they got back.

On the back seat, Natasha held imaginary conversation with Clint in her head, as you do when you want to ask someone thing, discuss something, but it's just too awkward, not the way you do things, and too personal.

_I didn't mean that about not working together. I'm sorry I told you that, as you went through enough of your own shit with Loki. Can we just not talk about this ever again and pretend it didn't happen and have make-up sex? _

Natasha couldn't help that her lip curled into a half smile, but it was quickly smothered. Clint wasn't like that. He felt things too deeply, like he said- was too sentimental. She should have known that when he didn't kill her. What an awful assassin he should have made. Strange how it worked out otherwise. Natasha herself didn't buy into that love stuff. It just wasn't helpful, practical, and jeopardised so many situations. Sure she was super fond of Clint- but-

Natasha turned over frustrated, and sat up with a sigh, feigning a stretch as a reason for her movement. Clint glanced up at her.

"You okay?"

"Super." Natasha drew her legs under her and rolled her shoulders back. "How much longer till we can get moving?"

Clint looked down at the phone, "Two hours."

Natasha made a disparaging noise and looked out of the window. It was so dark, only her own eyes looked back at her in a pale face surrounded by a halo of red hair. She looked back at Clint.

He closed Angry Birds and silence fell in the jeep again. They'd talked about all the trivialities, gossiped about the other Avengers too much, and discussed upcoming and this current mission to death. What was there left to say?

"Can I sit in the back with you, or would you just punch me?"

Natasha smiled with her eyes, if nothing else.

"Really, one of us should be in the drivers seat in case."

Clint took it as the yes that it was meant to be, and after hesitating about climbing through the gap between the front two seats, opened the driver's door to a gust of icy air, then slammed it and quickly climbed in the back. It was getting cold enough now that his breath was visible as steam.

He slammed the back door and slid down in the seat, tugging the wrists of his black jacket down as far as possible to keep out the cold. Natasha watched him unblinking, in thought, he presumed.

"Cold."

She huffed in agreement, then leant back into her seat, so they both sat side by side but not touching, grim figures in black. Natasha closed her eyes again.

The car made minute creaking sounds of settling metal and cold machinery contracting. Otherwise, the world outside was deadly silent, not even the animals were out calling at this hour, in the icy air.

"Look, do you wanna talk about it?"

She opened them again, Clint was looking at her. Natasha looked at him coldly, "There's nothing to talk about."

"Sure, fine, sorry, I just thought I'd push the matter as you never talk about stuff like that. While we have hours in a freezing car- I thought it was a good time as any."

"Stuff like what. Stuff like nothing." She sighed and closed her eyes with a pained expression, then on second thoughts drew up her legs and leant across the gap between them into his side. Clint slid an arm around her pressed himself into her. He looked down at her head.

"This is a little warmer."

"Shut up; I don't want to talk."

Clint 'shut up' agreeably, and watched the road outside as best he could, even though he guessed there was nothing out there.

They stayed like that until the went to catch the plane home.


End file.
